


despite the silence

by littlelamplight, SupergaySupercat (octoplods)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex is a paramedic, Astra is a superhero, Belated General Danvers Week, F/F, Kara is a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamplight/pseuds/littlelamplight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoplods/pseuds/SupergaySupercat
Summary: Nothing much is known about National City’s mysterious superhero, except that she never talks. That hasn't changed in the five years she's been the people's guardian, and despite interacting with her often in her line of work, emergency responder Alex Danvers has grown accustomed to their silent communicationsExcept then the woman saves her life, and speaks to her, and Alex realises that maybe their superhero needs saving herself.





	despite the silence

 

 

 

Alex has had her fair share of awful nights. She’s lost count of the amount of times she’s held someone’s life in her hands, trying to reassure them that everything will be okay while simultaneously trying to keep them alive until they reach the hospital. She’s seen horribly broken bones and twisted limbs and enough blood to leave her numb sometimes, but it’s always worth it for the lives she does manage to save.

 

Waking up with a splitting headache and a bump the size of an egg on the back of her head has to rank among her worst nights yet.

 

Especially since she has no idea where she is.

 

She stays still, trying to concentrate past her pounding headache, keeping her breathing slow and deep. Her hands are unbound, as are her feet, and there is a blanket drawn over her, the edge tickling her neck. Her skin feels tight in places, and she turns her hand over very slowly, sliding her fingers along the soft material, listening intently. There _is_ someone moving about in the room, soft footfalls, the faint creaking of floorboards. The fog in her mind makes it hard to focus, and when a cool, damp cloth touches her forehead, she can’t stop herself from flinching. Her hand snaps out, her fingers curling tightly around the offender’s wrist, and she sits up, attempting to put herself in a more defensible position. Pain shoots lances around her skull, and she swears violently.

 

‘Easy’, a voice reaches her, and she cracks open her eyes, wincing against the searing light, and that voice sounds oddly familiar, ‘you have a nasty concussion’.

 

Alex grimaces, glancing towards the voice, and all she sees is a blurred shadow. ‘W-what…’

 

‘If you would release my wrist, I can get you some painkiller’.

 

Alex does as she’s asked, drawing her knees up to her chest and leaning her head down on her arms. She groans, and mumbles, ‘what happened? Who are you?’

 

‘There was an explosion. A bomb, at a scene that you were one of the first to arrive at’. A glass is pressed into her hands, a packet of advil dropped beside her hip. ‘I brought you here to tend to your wounds’.

 

Alex glances down at herself. Her shirt has been removed, leaving her in her tank top, and there are bandages over her shoulders. She frowns slightly. She doesn’t remember getting injured. She barely remembers anything after starting her shift. She looks up at her saviour, intending to thank them, and does a double take.

 

The woman sitting by her bed is garbed entirely in black, and while they’re nothing unusual about her outfit, the shimmering black material covering her head, leaving her eyes exposed, is startlingly familiar.

 

Logically, she shouldn’t be surprised that she’s been saved by their city’s mysterious but nevertheless loved hero. Except for one fact.

 

Alex stares. ‘You’re speaking to me’.

 

The woman blinks. ‘I am’.

 

‘You don’t speak, hot stuff. Ever. That’s like, your thing’.

 

The corners of the woman’s pale eyes crease, and Alex thinks she might be smiling. ‘Why do you call me that? I believe I can ask that now’.

 

‘Well I had to call you something, didn’t I? I’m always seeing you at my scenes’.

 

In Alex’s opinion, the woman has far too many names, but it doesn’t exactly help that she’s never spoken at all. She avoids the media’s attempts to speak to her, never comments on anyone’s opinion of her, on various names she’s been given. She avoids _all_ attempts to speak to her, in fact, remaining silent even when she interacts with those she rescues, and while some people think it’s simply because she _can’t_ speak, others speculate that she simply has a distinctive voice.

 

Alex has never been sure which she believes more, and yet, now, hearing the woman’s voice, there is something… oddly familiar about it.

 

‘Please stop that’.

 

Alex blinks. ‘Stop what?’

 

‘You’re trying to work out whether you know me. I would appreciate it if you did not’. The woman's voice doesn't change, but there is tension in her shoulders, something that Alex recognises from her time interacting with the notoriously silent hero.

 

Alex frowns slightly. ‘I do know you though, don’t I?’

 

She knows the woman well enough to read her body language. She’s had plenty of practise at that, having to work out what's wrong with some injured soul if they can't communicate it to her, and she’s learned how to interpret whether the scene is safe or not, whether they have dozens of injured and dead, by the way the woman carries herself.

 

The woman's brow pinches, her fingers curling against her knees, and she says, ‘no, Alex. You don't’.

 

Alex stares. Her jaw unhinges in a way that is almost comical, and it's not really because of the fact that the woman said her name, but the way her name sounds when she says it.

 

The lilt as she pronounces it, the way she sounds it out, the hint of an accent to her voice that she hadn't been able to identify, it's all startlingly familiar.

 

‘Alura?’

 

The woman flinches, and Alex hears her inhale sharply, her eyes squeezing shut, but she shakes her head, a sharp, jerky movement, and says, ‘no. I’m not Alura’.

 

Alex frowns, staring at the woman, at the way her brow is furrowed in pain, and she doesn’t understand why she would’ve reacted like that if she _wasn’t_ Alura. Except she _can’t_ be Alura, because Alex has seen them in the same place before. She remembers it well, because she met Lucy because of it, because Alura was badly injured during a bank robbery four years ago, and Alex was one of the attending paramedics. She remembers meeting the tiny, frantic detective who would later become her closest friend, and she remembers that this woman, silent as always, hung around more than usual.

 

There’d been a tension in her shoulders, a rigidity to the way she held herself, but she stood near Alura and didn’t say a word, and Alex had found herself telling the silent woman that Alura would be okay, despite her injuries. The corners of the woman’s eyes had softened, and Alex had had the impression that she was being thanked, despite the silence between them.

 

At the time, she’d wondered if it was because the hero knew Alura.

 

Now she’s faced with the realisation that the woman sounds exactly like the woman, that her eyes are the same, and yet she isn’t her.

 

‘Who are you?’ she says, as softly as she can, because there is something like fear the hero’s eyes. ‘You’re not Alura, but you… you sound like her. Your eyes…’ she trails off, reaching out to touch the smooth surface of the woman’s helmet, and says, ‘you look like her too, don’t you? That’s why you wear this’.

 

The woman’s eyes shut, her frown harsh and pained, and the shimmering helmet around her head flickers. It flickers, changing to something opaque and transparent, until it winks out of existence, and Alex finds her hand resting against the woman’s cheek instead, and she breathes out shakily in surprise.

 

The woman is identical to Alura, and even though Alex was expecting it, it’s still something of a shock. She has the same proud, angular features, the same soft mouth, and her eyes are that same, pale colour, green in this light. She stares, and the woman stares back, something like astonishment gleaming in her eyes. ‘This is why I never speak’, she says quietly, her eyes moving over her face like she’s looking for something, ‘there was too much of a chance that someone like you would recognise me’.

 

Alex blinks, running her thumb absently over her high cheekbone, and the woman shivers. ‘Someone like me?’

 

‘Perceptive’.

 

Alex smiles slightly, but it slips away, and now that she can see the woman’s face, it occurs to her that she looks sad. There is a heaviness in her eyes that she never noticed before, and Alex wonders if the woman has starved herself of human contact as well as speech. ‘Who are you?’

 

The woman sighs heavily, and shrugs, a wry sound slipping from her lips. ‘I suppose there’s little use trying to deceive you. My name is Astra’.

 

‘Astra’, Alex says slowly, and a tremor wracks the woman’s body, ‘why do you hide your face?’

 

The woman’s mouth twitches in an attempt at a smile. ‘You’ve guessed correctly so far. Why don’t you tell me?’

 

Alex hesitates. She feels like she should remove her hand, but she’s not blind to the way the woman has tilted her head into the contact, and the least she can do in return for Astra saving her life is this. She runs her thumb over Astra’s cheek again, and says, ‘to protect your sister. And Kara’.

 

Astra’s eyes fly open, and she makes a soft, delighted sound, a glint of light shining in her eyes that wasn’t there before. ‘You know Kara?’

 

Alex can’t help the small smile that tugs at her lips at the change. ‘Not very well, but I’ve met her. She’s a great kid’.

 

Astra’s smile slips away, that heavy sadness darkening her eyes, and Alex frowns. ‘You… you don’t see her, do you? You don’t…’ her frown deepens, and she thinks about how she didn’t even know Astra existed. That she’s never heard Alura mention her, or Kara, that there is something very familiar about the sorrow in the woman’s eyes. ‘They… you don’t see either of them. They don’t know you’re doing this’.

 

The woman shuts her eyes again, and murmurs, ‘they think I’m dead’.

 

Alex feels her heart twist awfully, and she can’t imagine why Astra would isolate herself for so long. Why she would allow the people she clearly loves to think that she’s dead. All she knows is that it clearly hurts the woman, and she whispers, ‘why? What happened to you?’

 

Astra makes a dry sound, something like a scoff that sounds to choked to be humorous. ‘You make it sound like isolation isn’t what I deserve’.

 

Alex gapes. ‘Because… because I don’t believe you do? You’ve been this city’s hero for almost five years now. You’ve never accepted payment or engaged with the media, so it’s not for glory. And you do your best to insure that as little damage as possible is done to the city. You don’t even kill the bad guys. That doesn’t… sound like a bad person to me’.

 

Astra swallows. Alex watches the muscles in her neck tighten, her jaw clench, and she notices for the first time that there is a shock of white in the woman’s dark hair, tumbling down in her curls. She wonders whether it’s a sign of whatever Astra went through to obtain the powers she has. The woman lifts her hand, her fingers trembling, and covers Alex’s hand with her own. For a moment, she remains silent, her eyes closed, and her skin is warm and soft. Alex watches her, and her throat feels tight raw.

 

This isn’t right.

 

Astra has done nothing but help people for so long, and yet her isolation seems to be a sentence.

 

‘Maybe I’m trying to atone for something’, she says finally, and she stands, backing away from Alex with something like regret shining in her eyes, and Alex’s ribs constrict painfully. Astra looks down at her hands, her hair falling down to frame her face, and she suddenly looks very young.

 

Young, and terribly lonely.

 

‘Rest, Alex’, she says finally, curling her hands into fists as she turns away, ‘I will return you to your home when you’ve recovered’.

 

Alex doesn’t say anything. Instead, she lies down, curling onto her side and watching Astra move about the room, and she knows one thing.

 

She’s going to find out what’s going on here.

 

She has to.

 

~ ~ ~

 

She doesn’t often visit Lucy at work without texting her first, but she’s not entirely sure how to broach the topic of Alura’s not dead sister. So she grabs coffee and Lucy’s favourite muffin, and turns up around lunch, hoping to catch her during a lull.

 

Lucy looks up when she sees her, running her hand through her hair to push it out of her face and leaning back in her chair. ‘Alex’, she says, mouth quirked in a welcoming smile, ‘what a surprise’.

 

Alex perches on the edge of her desk, placing the coffee and the muffin on top of Lucy’s paperwork. ‘A pleasant one, I hope’.

 

Lucy groans, snatching the coffee from her desk and lifting it to her lips. ‘You brought coffee’, she peeks inside the brown paper bag, raising her eyebrows slightly, ‘and my favourite treat. Why wouldn’t I be happy to see you?’

 

Alex smiles slightly, glancing down at Lucy’s paperwork. ‘Busy day?’

 

Lucy rubs the back of her neck, cradling her coffee against her cheek, huffing a sigh. ‘You could say that’.

 

‘Danvers’, Lillian looks over the top of her glasses at her, her pen stilling, ‘you’re not distracting the Detective are you?’

 

Lucy groans, pouting in annoyance, ‘come on, Sarge, I worked through my lunch break’.

 

Lillian taps her pen against her files, smiling faintly, and inclines her head. ‘True. Carry on, then’.

 

Lucy rolls her eyes, propping her heel on her knee and looking up at Alex with a smile. ‘So, what do you want in exchange for such treats?’

 

Alex hesitates. She scratches at the surface of Lucy’s desk with her nail, biting her lip slightly, and says, ‘I wanted to… ask you something’.

 

Lucy cocks an eyebrow, tearing a piece of her muffin off absently. ‘You’re not about to propose to me are you? You know I have a girlfriend’. Her expression turns serious, her brow furrowing tightly, and she taps Alex’s knee lightly. ‘Seriously, what’s up? You look… worried’.

 

Alex sighs. ‘It’s kinda about your girlfriend, actually. I wanted to… what do you know about her sister?’

 

Lucy chokes on her muffin, slapping her chest, and Lillian makes a very strange sound. Alex throws her a glance, and alarm stirs in her chest. The woman has gone very pale, staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. Her glasses slip from her fingers to hit the edge of the desk, and J’onn emerges from his office to place a hand on her shoulder. ‘Sergeant? Is something the matter?’

 

Lillian clears her throat, retrieving her glasses from the floor, and her fingers shake. ‘She wants to know about Astra’.

 

J’onn goes very still. He stares at her, and Alex feels like the entire room has gone cold. It’s not a hostile look, it almost seems… it seems sad. Sad, and surprised, and Alex is deeply regretting bringing it up. Lucy stands, grabs her arm, and says, ‘sir, can I be excused?’

 

J’onn nods, and Lucy drags her out of the squad room with a firm grip, and Alex allows herself to be led. Lucy takes her to the break room, shuts the door, leaning against her for a moment, and Alex says quickly, ‘look, I didn’t think -’

 

‘It’s okay, Alex’. Lucy turns to lean against the door, scrubbing her hand over her face with a heavy sigh. ‘You weren’t to know’.

 

Alex shifts from foot to foot, guilt bubbling in her stomach. She’d come to see Lucy at work to avoid potentially upsetting Alura. She didn’t expect this. ‘So they… they knew her?’

 

‘Yeah’. Lucy flops into a chair, leaning her head back, and says, ‘she used to work with them’.

 

Alex stares. ‘She was a cop?’

 

Lucy shakes her head. ‘Hostage negotiator’.

 

Alex sits down, dragging her chair closer and drawing her legs up to cross them, leaning her elbows on her knees to stare at her friend. ‘Did you know her?’

 

Lucy shakes her head again. She retrieves her coffee from the stool, and rubs at her neck. ‘I transferred here after she died. I only met Alura after it happened’. Her mouth turns down at the corners, and she sighs heavily. ‘She… Astra was her twin. She’s never… really recovered from it’.

 

Alex thinks of the heavy sadness in Astra’s eyes, and wonders if Alura looks the same when she thinks of her sister. ‘What happened? To Astra?’

 

Lucy sighs, and murmurs, ‘I’ve heard it from Alura, and Lillian, and from what I’ve gathered… it wasn’t… it wasn’t pleasant’. She settles back into the chair, crossing her legs and curling her fingers around her ankle. ‘From what I heard, before it happened, Astra had a spotless record. She was well liked here, too. J’onn and Lillian were close friends of hers’.

 

‘But then it went wrong?’

 

Lucy barks a laugh, sharp and humourless. ‘Yeah, you could say that. The usual story, really. Some guy who took his problems out on the innocent.  He was threatening to set off a bomb at some energy factory. A new attempt at clean energy, I think, and he had hostages. So J’onn called Astra’. She rubs at her neck, that anxious movement she developed after a suspect caught her off guard and got her in a chokehold, and says, ‘it went… badly. I’m told she had him, you know? She’d agreed to exchange herself for a kid who’d had the misfortune to get caught up in it, and while it was risky, it’s not like she hadn’t done it before. They were talking, and she was getting somewhere, and then the guy just… just snapped. Blew himself and the factory up’.

 

Alex’s skin crawls, a heavy weight settling in her gut as bile rises in her throat, and she thinks of the awful heaviness in Astra’s eyes. ‘How many people died?’

 

Lucy’s mouth twists. ‘Twenty three. Including the kid’s dad. The boss, I think. And Astra’. She closes her eyes, and shakes her head. ‘No one saw it coming’.

 

Silence falls between them, and Lucy stares down into her coffee, her brow furrowed deeply. Alex folds her arms over her chest, her fingers twisting in her shirt, and she thinks of how Astra believes her isolation is deserved.

 

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, and murmurs, ‘and J’onn, and Lillian? They were there?’

 

‘Yeah. They were there’. Lucy drains her coffee, grimacing, as if it burns her throat, and places the empty cup on the floor. She rests her chin in her hands, and murmurs, ‘they were her friends, and they… I think they blame themselves, you know? That kind of guilt that happens when you lose someone. J’onn called her to the scene, and Lillian let Astra go in’. Sorrow gleams in her eyes, and her voice is tight when she says, ‘even Alura blames herself. Just for… I don’t know’.

 

Alex thinks of Astra again, and says, ‘for living?’

 

Lucy laughs, a pained sound, and says, ‘yeah. Something like that’.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Alex passes the next few days in something of a daze. It was one thing to suspect that Astra was punishing herself unfairly, and another thing entirely to have it confirmed. Another thing altogether to see how it affected the people who miss her, and still think she’s dead.

 

When Astra told her that she was trying to atone for something, Alex had wondered if it was true, for a while. Wondered if Astra really had done something so horrible that her self imposed isolation that she clearly didn’t want really was earned.

 

But this, learning that Astra apparently died trying to save people, learning that she blames herself for what happened, leaves a sickening feeling in her gut that won’t leave her alone, even when she’s occupied, even when she’s thinking about other things.

 

She wants to tell Astra that it wasn’t her fault, that she’s not to blame, that she doesn’t deserve punishment for what happened, but she hasn’t seen the woman since their encounter. She’s seen her on the news, seen her shape at crime scenes, but its clear that Astra is trying to stay away from her, and Alex doesn’t know what to do.

 

She could attempt to find her way back to Astra’s place, but the woman flew her back in her sleep, and she has no memory of how she got there.

 

She’s sure that at some point, she’ll run into the woman again, that they’ll interact at another crime scene, that she’ll find some way to communicate to the woman that she doesn’t _need_ to be alone, even if she has no idea when that will be.

 

She _doesn’t_ expect the woman to turn up at her apartment, without warning, in the middle of the night, covered in her own blood.

 

Astra collapses to the floor in the middle of her apartment, her breathing ragged and uneven, her face lined with pain, and Alex jerks out of her state of frozen surprise when the woman looks up at her, and breathes, ‘Alex…’

 

Alex sets her glass down hastily, scrambling over the back of her couch to get to the woman as fast as she can, and drops to her knees, gripping Astra’s shoulders as she sways, trying to support her weight enough to lie her down on the floorboards. ‘I’ve got you’, she says, trying to keep the panic from her voice, because she’s seen worse, of course she has, and she knows how to keep herself calm in these situations, but she’s acutely aware that she’s not on the job, that she doesn’t have an ambulance stocked full of supplies to help, and that this looks _bad_.

 

‘I’m sorry to intrude’, Astra’s voice is tight, almost a hiss through her teeth, and she looks too pale and far too pained for Alex’s liking. ‘I wasn’t sure where else to go’.

 

‘Shit’, Alex breathes, her hands hovering in the air over Astra’s soaked shirt, ‘what happened?’

 

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Astra wheezes, her voice tight with pain, her eyes screwed shut. ‘I was injured’.

 

Alex dashes into her kitchen to grab the first aid kit she keeps stashed under her sink, grabs a clean tea towel from a draw to aid as a compress, and races back to Astra’s side. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be invulnerable?’

 

‘No’, Astra groans as she stretches out on the floor at Alex’s urging, her hand pressed over her abdomen, pain tight around her eyes. ‘My powers simply… allow me to form… impenetrable armour around my body’.

 

‘So what happened?’ Alex grips Astra’s hand, tugging at it, and the situation has never felt as urgent as it does now, with Astra’s blood slipping over her fingers, precious and finite and she swears when she sees the lacerations across the woman’s stomach, the deep slices curling over her waist.

 

‘I used… too much energy’, Astra covers her mouth with a shaking hand as Alex bends to inspect her wounds, muffling a groan into her palm as she prods the edges of her wounds carefully. ‘There was an earthquake, and I was t-trying to keep a building from collapsing w-while the inhabitants -’ she groans again, and there is a wheeze in her voice that concerns Alex.

 

Her fingers skim over the woman’s ribs, and she swears when she feels the odd angle of the bone. ‘Shit, Astra, I think you might have a punctured lung’.

 

Astra grimaces. ‘My shoulder is also… dislocated’.

 

‘Astra… I don’t have the equipment to help you here’. Alex feels jittery, and there is a feverish look in Astra’s eyes. ‘I need to take you -’

 

‘No hospital’, she wheezes, ‘y-you know I can’t’.

 

‘Astra’, Alex grasps at the woman’s bloodied hand, ‘I can’t save you here’.

 

Astra smiles, a tremulous thing, and her fingers curl to clasp her hand. ‘I know’.

 

Alex stares down at her, her heart twisting horribly, and whispers, ‘you… you want to die?’

 

Astra shakes her head, and it's a strange, loose movement. ‘No… I simply… I should have died a long time ago, Alex. I’m not afraid to die’.

 

‘Yeah, well, I don’t want you to die, alright?’ Alex can feel the blood soaking through the material she’s holding over Astra’s wounds, and her eyes are burning. She squeezes her hand harder, trying to get Astra to look at her, and says, ‘please, let me help you. No hospital, I promise, but let me… let me get help’.

 

Astra stares at her, her brow furrowed slightly, as if she’s having trouble understanding what she’s said. She blinks slowly, and murmurs, ‘Alex…’

 

‘Astra’, she can hear the plea in her own voice, desperate and shaky, ‘you trusted me with your name. Please… please trust me with this’.

 

Astra blinks again. Her eyes rove slowly over her face, pale and dull with pain, and for a horrible moment, Alex thinks she’s going to refuse her.

 

Then the woman squeezes her hand, faint, but firm, and nods.

 

Alex takes the woman’s hands, and presses them down over the fabric over her wounds. ‘Keep pressure on this, just until I’m back’.

 

She dashes over to the couch, grabs her phone, and hits speed dial.

 

_‘Danvers_ ’, Lara’s voice is groggy and a little irritated, ‘ _you know this is my night off-’_

 

‘Lara’, Alex can hear the urgency in her own voice, tight and strained, and she’s never sounded like this on the job, ‘I need help. I need you to come here. I’ve got a patient with multiple lacerations to the abdomen, broken ribs, and a possible punctured lung’.

 

She listens to fabric shifting, and she can hear tell that the woman is frowning when she says, _‘Alex, why can’t you -’_

 

‘Lara’, Alex curls her hand into a fist, and she wonders if Lillian is there, or if she’s on duty that night, ‘it’s Astra’.

 

The trauma surgeon falls silent, and Alex waits, shifting from foot to foot, impatient and worried, listening to Astra’s wheezing breaths in the background, and she knows that this must be a shock to the woman, but they don’t have _time_.

 

_‘I’ll be there as soon as I can’._

 

~ ~ ~

 

Afterwards, Lara washes the blood from her fingers in the kitchen sink, and her hands, which remained so steady as she worked to fix Astra, are shaking. Alex watches her dry her hands, and lean on the edge of the bench. Alex slides a glass of scotch over the counter, and says, ‘here’.

 

Lara snatches it from the bench, lifts the glass to her lips and flicks her wrist to down the drink. She places it down with a little more force than necessary, and breathes out shakily. ‘She’s… she’s alive. I don’t… I don’t understand’.

 

Alex twists her hands together, glancing over towards her bed, where Astra lies still, but alive. ‘Did you know her well?’

 

Lara chuckles wryly, reaching for the bottle of scotch. ‘We grew up together. We were practically family’. She rubs her hand over her face, and breathes out slowly. ‘I don’t understand. She’s… she’s this city’s hero? She didn’t die?’

 

Alex nods. ‘I think… something must have happened when that guy set the bomb off in the factory. Some kind of reaction between the explosives and the chemicals’.

 

Lara frowns slightly, absently massaging the joints of her knuckles. ‘It was a clean energy factory. They were… experimenting with new ways to conserve energy’. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and mumbles, ‘I just… I don’t understand why she’s been… pretending to be dead’.

 

Alex swallows, twisting her hands together, and murmurs, ‘a lot of people died’.

 

Lara’s expression pinches, and she nods slowly. For a long moment, she is silent, staring over Alex’s shoulder at the woman lying in her bed. She rubs her hand over her face, breathing slowly, and says, ‘I should… I should go home. God, I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to Lillian, nevermind Alura’.

 

Alex feels alarm spike in her gut, and she says quickly, ‘Lara… do you think you could… just… keep this quiet for a bit?’

 

Lara looks up at her, and snaps, ‘what?’

 

Alex holds out her hands, palms turned down, and says softly, ‘I know it’s asking a lot. I do. But… Astra’s been pretending to be dead for… five years now, right? Do you think that she’s necessarily going to come back just because you know differently now?’

 

Lara’s brow furrows deeply. She stares at her for a moment, her jaw working slightly, and then she says, ‘you’re asking a lot of me, Alex. What are you proposing?’

 

‘Just… just let me talk to her first. I think… I think I can convince her not to hide anymore’. She tries to sound confident as she says it, tries not to let any doubt creep into her voice. ‘She… she trusts me, I think. She wouldn’t have come here, otherwise’.

 

Lara is silent for a moment. Then, slowly, she nods. ‘I don’t suppose… it’s not like we can force her to come back to us’. The woman rubs a tired hand over her face again, and Alex can see the conflict in Lara’s face, faced with her request and the choice to lie to her wife, and Alura, and murmurs, ‘alright. I’ll… I won’t tell them yet. But just… don’t take long, alright? This isn’t a secret I’m comfortable keeping’.

 

Alex nods. Lara retrieves her coat from where she discarded it over a chair, and slips it on slowly. ‘I’ll leave my things here’, she says, ‘so that you can change her bandages’. She pauses, her hand on the door, her mouth turned down as she gazes across the apartment at Astra, and, staring at her face, at the old sorrow in her eyes and the lines furrowing her brow, it strikes Alex just how much Astra has been missed.

 

She thinks of the way Lillian reacted to the mention of Astra’s name, how still J’onn became, how there was grief in Lucy’s eyes for a woman she never got to meet, and how sad Alura has always looked to Alex, even before she knew why.

 

She thinks of how Lara came without questioning her, when she told her that it was Astra who was injured, despite the fact that she’s believed Astra dead for five years now. She didn’t doubt her, trusting instead to the urgency in her voice, and how she’s trusting her now.

 

How Astra trusted her with her name, and for her help.

 

She just has to hope that she trusts her now.

 

~ ~ ~

 

When Astra finally stirs, late in the evening the next day, Alex has run through what she’s going to say at least a dozen times, and she still doesn’t know if she’s got it entirely figured out yet.

 

Her eyes are glazed when she opens them, and Alex leans over her anxiously, smiling when the woman’s gaze focuses on her. ‘Hey’, she says softly, trying to keep her voice low and unthreatening, ‘welcome back, hot stuff’.

 

Astra cracks a smile, small and more pained than amused, but somehow genuine. ‘You’re a very welcoming sight, Alex’.

 

She moves to sit up, and Alex reaches out to hastily press against her shoulder. ‘You were really badly injured, Astra. You need to rest’.

 

The woman gingerly lifts the covers to look down at herself, her eyebrows raising slightly. ‘Who… who did you call? They seem to have done a good job’.

 

Alex hesitates, steeling herself, and murmurs, ‘Lara. I called Lara’.

 

Astra’s eyes widen slightly, and she sits upright, only to fall back against the pillows with a groan. Her eyes squeeze shut, her hands pressing against her stomach, and she hisses. Alex reaches out to tug back the covers, and swears loudly when she sees that the bandages are stained crimson again. She presses down against Astra’s sternum, and says, ‘stay down, alright? I need to check your stitches’.

 

Astra draws her legs up, groaning low at the back of her throat, her fingers curling tight, but she doesn’t protest when Alex begins to unwrap her bandages. The woman makes a strange, pained sound, like a wheeze, and it takes Alex a moment to realise that Astra is laughing, the sound muffled by her pain. She stares at her, her fingers moving carefully, and says, ‘what could you possibly find funny about this?’

 

Astra bares her teeth in a pained smile, and mumbles, ‘nothing. I simply… forgot how much things could hurt. I haven’t been in this much pain since… since I died’.

 

Alex swallows tightly, reaching under the bed for the medical supplies Lara left behind, to keep them ready, and says, ‘the explosion?’

 

Alex wonders if the pain in Astra’s face is from current injuries, or the memory of the day she officially died. ‘It was like… it felt like being burned alive’.

 

Alex is distracted by the sight of fresh blood on Astra’s skin, and she bites her lip slightly. ‘You’ve pulled one of your stitches. Nothing serious, but just… I know what I’m talking about when I say you need rest. I helped Lara patch you up. So just, listen to me. Please’.

 

Astra is silent as Alex tends to her torn stitch, her jaw a sharp line as she grits her teeth, and then she murmurs, ‘why did you have to tell Lara? She’ll… she’ll tell my sister’.

 

‘Is that such a bad thing?’

 

Astra shuts her eyes, and shakes her head slightly. ‘Alex, I can’t-’

 

‘You miss her. And she misses you. Why shouldn't you see her?’

 

Astra opens her eyes, her brow furrowing slightly, and whispers, ‘how… how do you know that she misses me? I thought you didn’t… didn’t know about me’.

 

Alex shakes her head slightly, tying off the stitch and reaching for something to clean the woman’s skin with. ‘I didn’t. But… when I first met Alura, I thought that she… that she looked sad. There was this sorrow in her eyes that made her look… older, than she was’.

 

Astra’s mouth twists, and she looks away, her hands curling into fists, fingers scraping against the sheets. ‘Alex… I can’t -’

 

‘I spoke to Lucy, Astra’. Alex keeps her eyes down, works on replacing Astra’s bandages, but she can feel the way the woman tenses at her words. ‘I know about the factory’.

 

Astra swallows. The muscles in her neck tense, a vein standing out in her forehead, and she whispers, ‘then you know why I have to stay away’.

 

Alex tugs Astra’s shirt down, and stands, moving quickly towards the kitchen to wash the blood from her hands. She stares down into the sink, the hot water edging on scalding, and shakes her head. ‘No. I know why you _think_ you have to stay away’.

 

‘Alex, you… you don’t understand. I have to. I have to… make up for what happened’.

 

Alex sighs heavily, rubbing at her eyes as she returns to sit by Astra’s side. The woman looks at her with those tired, fractured eyes, and Alex says softly, ‘what happened wasn’t your fault, Astra. You were doing your job. You’re not responsible for what that man did’.

 

Astra shakes her head, gazing up at her with an almost puzzled expression. ‘My job was to save those people, Alex. That was what I was supposed to do. And I failed’.

 

Alex reaches out to touch Astra’s hand softly, and the woman’s hand twitches, like she wants to pull away but longs for the physical contact. Alex runs her forefinger lightly over the woman’s knuckles, traces patterns over her skin, and says, ‘I’ve lost people too, Astra. I’ve held someone’s life in my hands, and felt them slip away. And sometimes… sometimes I blame myself. That’s easier, than admitting that it wasn’t my fault. That they were just going to die’. She sighs, rubbing her hand over her face, and Astra’s hand presses back into her fingers, twisting to curl her thumb hesitantly over her forefinger, like she wants to offer some support. ‘But their deaths weren’t actually my fault, Astra. And those people didn’t die because of you’.

 

Astra covers her mouth with her hand for a moment, her breathing shaky and uneven, and Alex watches tears well in her eyes. ‘I… but they died, Alex. They died, and I didn’t’.

 

Alex takes Astra’s hand in her own, and she can feel faint scars over the woman’s knuckles. She squeezes, until Astra looks at her, and says, ‘and the fact that you lived is reason enough to sentence yourself to isolation that you clearly don’t want?’

 

Astra’s mouth twists, and when she blinks, tears dislodge from her eyelashes to slide down her temples and into her dark hair. ‘Maybe I do want it’.

 

Alex thinks she would laugh, at the almost pitiful attempt, if her heart wasn’t aching. ‘I don’t believe that. I think you miss your sister, and your niece, just as much as they miss you’.

 

‘They’re better off without me, Alex’.

 

Alex wonders how many times Astra has had this argument with herself. How many times she’s had to talk herself into staying away, out of going home, and Alex finds herself gripping Astra’s hand tightly. ‘No, they’re not’. Astra shakes her head, her brow furrowing tightly, and Alex whispers, ‘they miss you, Astra. When I went to talk to Lucy, J’onn and Lillian were… they’re still devastated, that you died. And when I told Lara that you were hurt, she didn’t question me. Even though to her, you were still dead. She just came’.

 

Astra covers her eyes, shaking her head slightly, and mumbles, ‘why do you care, Alex?’

 

Alex reaches out, and slides her fingers carefully against Astra’s cheek. The woman makes a strange noise, choked and soft, like a pained whine, and Alex runs her thumb gently back and forth over her cheekbone. ‘Because you’ve done nothing but help people for years now. And I think you’re lonely. Why else would you come to me?’ She frowns slightly, finally seeing the opportunity to ask a question that’s been on her mind ever since that night that Astra saved her life. ‘Why did you speak to me, that day? You didn’t have to. You could’ve… kept your cover’.

 

Astra sucks in a sharp breath, and her teeth dig into her bottom lip. She drops her hand from her eyes to cover Alex’s hand against her cheek. She turns her head, pressing her cheek closer to Alex’s palm, and when she speaks, her lips brush against her skin. ‘I… I wanted to. I wanted to speak to you. I… I felt like… whenever we saw each other, it was like you were listening. I never spoke, but you… you responded. Like you understood, without words. You spoke to me like we were having a conversation’. Her mouth turns down, her brow furrowing so tightly it looks painful. ‘I just… I wanted to’.

 

Alex reaches out to stroke her fingers through Astra’s hair, and she murmurs, ‘Astra, you don’t… you don’t have to be alone anymore’.

 

Astra lets out a long, slow breath, and Alex can feel the woman’s tears against her fingers. ‘What if… what if you’re wrong, Alex? What if they don’t want to see me?’

 

Alex feels her vision blur, and she blinks rapidly. She leans down to press their foreheads together, spurred on by the way Astra has responded to her touch so far. ‘You trusted me with your name, Astra. You trusted me to save you. Trust that I know what I’m talking about’.

 

Astra shudders, and her free hand comes up to cup the back of Alex’s head, her fingers sliding into her hair. She holds her there, breathing shakily, and Alex closes her eyes, drifting to the feel of the woman’s fingers stroking through her hair, the smell of woodsmoke and rain that hangs around her, and tilts her head slightly to press her lips against the woman’s cheek. She tastes salt.

 

Astra takes a deep breath, and nods.

 

~ ~ ~

 

‘Are you sure about this?’

 

Alex sighs, leaning against Astra’s shoulder in a small show of support. ‘Hey, what happened to trusting me?’

 

Alex feels Astra’s fingers brush over the back of her hand, a faint question, and she turns her hand slightly to let the woman fit their fingers together. Over the course of her recovery, Astra has moved from accepting physical contact to initiating it, and Alex has stopped questioning the pleasant warmth that ignites between her ribs at the woman’s touch. ‘I do trust you, Alex’. Astra’s thumb swipes over her knuckles, matching the rhythm of her breathing, and her voice is sure, however nervous she looks. ‘It’s just…’

 

‘You’re nervous’. Alex squeezes her hand gently, giving her a soft smile. ‘I know’.

 

Astra gives her a hesitant smile, and squeezes her hand in return. She takes a deep breath, turning her head to look out the window, and murmurs, ‘well then… let’s do this. Before I lose my nerve’.

 

They climb out of the car, and Astra takes Alex’s hand again as they walk down the garden path, her eyes moving over her surroundings, and Alex wonders how much has changed in her absence, whether the flowers are the same, whether the hammock on the front porch is a recent addition, whether it feels like coming home, and squeezes Astra’s hand tightly as she knocks.

 

The door swings open, and Lara greets them with a small, but genuine smile. Her eyes are wide and almost awed, despite the fact that she already saw Astra alive, and she half reaches for her friend, like she wants to embrace her but doesn't want to overwhelm her. ‘Astra’, she breathes, her smile as bright as the tears glittering in her eyes, ‘I… I’m glad to see you on your feet’.

 

Astra lets go of Alex’s hand to reach for her old friend, and the way she smiles is almost hesitant. Her fingers grasp Lara’s hand tightly, and she says, ‘it's good to see you, Lara’.

 

The tears in Lara’s eyes seem to brighten, and she rubs hastily at her face with her free hand. She laughs, a slightly choked sound, and murmurs, ‘come. They're waiting’.

 

She squeezes Astra’s hand tightly before letting go, and Astra lets out a long, shaky breath as Lara turns to walk down the hall. Alex reaches for her hand again, and Astra grips it tightly. ‘You okay?’

 

‘Yes’. Astra turns to look at her, her eyes bright and shinning. ‘Thank you’.

 

Alex opens her mouth to speak, and Astra leans forward, and kisses her. Her hand comes up to cup her face, and Alex snaps out of her surprise to kiss her back, tangling her hand in the woman’s long her and pressing back, a little frantic, a little messy, and as honest as things between them have always been.

 

Then Astra pulls away, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her eyes wide and glittering, and murmurs, ‘stay with me?’

 

Alex laughs softly, kisses her cheek, and squeezes her hand. ‘As if you have to ask’.

 

They step into the house, making their way down the corridor, and Alex can hear voices ahead of them. She squeezes Astra’s hand again before letting go, picking up her pace a little, and when she steps into the living room, Lucy is the first to notice her. Her friend is sitting on the floor, a large golden dog draped over her lap, and she smiles up at her, a faintly curious expression gleaming in her eyes. ‘So you’re the one who asked us all to get together? What exactly are you planning, Alex?’

 

Lara is perched on the arm of the couch, her hand resting on Lillian’s shoulder, perhaps predicting the support she might need to give, and there is something like excitement glittering in the woman’s eyes, like she can’t wait to see Astra reunited with her friends, and the people who have missed her for so long. J’onn glances up at her, nodding in acknowledgement, but he and Lillian have their heads bent, listening to something that Kara is telling them, and Kara looks tiny sandwiched between them.

 

Alex stares at Kara, and the smile that stretches across her face feels impossible to contain, because she remembers how much Astra has missed her young niece, how much she’s wanted to see her again, and she turns to look over her shoulder at Astra, and beckons.

 

Astra steps into the room, and Kara looks up, seemingly instinctively, and for a moment, she doesn’t seem to react at all.

 

Kara must have been very young when Astra ‘died’, and for a brief second, Alex wonders if the girl even remembers her aunt.

 

But then something flickers in Kara’s eyes, and her mouth opens, her eyes widening in an almost comical expression, and she breathes, ‘Aunt Astra?’

 

Astra’s voice is tight with emotion, but her smile is brighter than its ever been. ‘Hello, Little One’.

 

Kara surges up from the couch, leaps over the coffee table, and Astra lunges to catch her, dropping to her knees to haul the girl against her chest, and Kara is laughing. She’s laughing, burying her face in her aunt’s shoulder while the woman’s fingers twist tightly in her t shirt, and Alex glances up in time to see Lillian cover her mouth with her hand, and burst into tears. J’onn rubs her back absently, and despite the clear shock in his eyes, he’s smiling, too.

 

Lara strokes Lillian’s hair soothingly, and her wife mumbles, ‘Astra? You’re… how are you alive?’

 

‘She’s the city’s superhero’, Alex says, mainly to spare Astra from having to lift her head from Kara’s hair, ‘the explosion at the factory gave her powers’.

 

‘Well, this explains why you were suddenly so curious about her’. Lucy sounds shaken, but she’s smiling too, her eyes bright, and Alex thinks of how tired Lucy looked when she spoke of how much Alura missed her sister.

 

‘Where have you been?’ J’onn asks, patting Lillian’s back while he leans forward, clearly trying to catch Astra’s eye. ‘Why haven’t you spoken to us?’

 

Astra lifts her head to respond, her face wet with tears, but she’s prevented by answering by the back door opening. Alura steps into the room, a basket of flowers hanging from her arm, and says, ‘what’s all the commotion in…’

 

The woman freezes. She stares at her sister, kneeling on the floor with her niece wrapped around her, blinking rapidly, like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, and the basket slips from her fingers to spill flowers across the floor. Astra rises on unsteady legs, holding onto Kara’s hand, and says tentatively, ‘Alura’.

 

Alura takes one step forward, and then another, staring at her sister’s face like she doesn’t dare to look away, lest this be some trick, and Astra takes a small step forward to meet her. Alura lifts her hands, and it’s so uncanny to see them so close, to see just how alike they look, and Astra reaches out to grasp her sister’s hands in her own. She squeezes, and murmurs, ‘I’m real, sister’.

 

‘I don’t understand’, Alura whispers, and she grips Astra’s hands so tightly her knuckles are white. ‘You were… you were dead. How… how are you here?’

 

Astra sighs heavily, and murmurs, ‘I never died. I became… something else, and I stayed away from you all because I… I believed I had to make up for my failure at the factory’.

 

Lillian rubs at her eyes, hands curled into fists like a child, and Alex hears the guilt she saw when she visited their precinct when she mumbles, ‘we failed you, Astra’.

 

‘The situation was too volatile’, J’onn says, speaking for the first time since Astra stepped into the room, and Alex wonders how many times he’s imagined saying this to the friend he lost, ‘we shouldn’t have allowed you to go in there’.

 

Astra blinks, like she’s shocked to see the fact that they really did miss her for herself, and shakes her head. ‘No… you weren’t to blame. I don’t blame either of you. It was… it was that man’s fault. No one else's’.

 

Alex feels a glimmer of pride at the confidence in Astra’s voice, like she really does believe it, now.

 

Alura is still staring at her sister, still frozen and almost afraid, and breathes, ‘what convinced you to… to come back?’

 

Astra smiles, and looks at Alex, and there is a look in her eyes that makes her feel warm all the way down to her toes. ‘Alex. She… she saved me’.

 

A tremor runs through Alura’s body, and all at once, she collapses forwards against her sister, wrapping her arms around her back and burying her face against her shoulder. ‘I missed you’, she chokes, and Astra’s hands come up to press against her shoulder blades, holding her close, ‘I missed you so much’.

 

Astra’s smile is tremulous, her eyes watering as she turns her face against her sister’s hair, and she murmurs, ‘I missed you too’.

 

Kara tugs on Alex’s hand, and she looks away from the reunion, smiling down at the young girl. Kara looks up at her with something like awe, and her smile is so bright it’s almost blinding. ‘Thank you’, she says, ‘for saving her’.

 

Alex glances up at at Astra again, thinking of the fact that Astra reached out to her, that she spoke to her, that she came to her for help, that there was always a part of her that wanted to come out of her self imposed isolation, and smiles. She squeezes Kara’s hand, and says softly, ‘I didn’t save her, Kara. I just helped her save herself’.

 

Later, she’ll tell Astra that, lips so close to Astra’s that they brush together as she speaks, with her hands in her hair as the woman holds her close, but for now, she bends to let Kara hug her, and thinks that there is no greater reward, than the way Astra smiles at her over her sister’s shoulder.

 

**Author's Note:**

> fhjsdklfds will i ever tire of writing these two??? No. 
> 
> will Alura ever stop crying when she sees Alex because she's so thankful to her for convincing Astra to come home? It'll take a while


End file.
